Hi, Im going on my first trip to England in just over a month and i want to take photos of castles and buildings so i'm taking my 5D mark iii and as far as lenses go I'm thinking i will take my 24-70L ii and 70-200 Lis ii but i want to get a wider lens, so I'm thinking i might go the 17mm tse.

I haven't used it, but I imagine it would be very handy over there. I've typically taken a 17-40 (or 10-22) when visiting the country formerly known as Great Britain. Often these are used at the wider end and I up with buildings that are leaning backwards. While this can be corrected in software, doing this cuts off large parts of the image, often destroying the impact of the photo. A tilt shift woud save a lot of hassle and lead to better pictures.

If you are born in England (part of Great Britain) doesn't that also make you British? Wasn't it called the British Empire and not the English Empire? I watched the video...informative and entertaining.

Don't know if you're an iPad user but an excellent app I discovered is "stuck on earth". a photography/travel app to check out other pics people have taken that might be of interest. You can make travel lists to save your findings. It's almost like your traveling there to recon what you want to photograph. I've used it on several excursions already to scout out places to shoot.

Hi, Im going on my first trip to England in just over a month and i want to take photos of castles and buildings so i'm taking my 5D mark iii and as far as lenses go I'm thinking i will take my 24-70L ii and 70-200 Lis ii but i want to get a wider lens, so I'm thinking i might go the 17mm tse.

Does anyone have any recommendations on this lens?

Hi Creek, do you have destinations in mind yet? I'm presuming London/Edinburgh...but do you need suggestions for things slightly more out of the way? (How long are you here-& are you driving? There are some great things to see that are more out of the way, if you're not so bound to public transport).

I agree with the 17 tse. In the cities, a lot of the buildings don't quite have the room around to stand back too far....you'll do a lot of looking UP at them, so tse is definitely a plan.Otherwise, yes the two zooms are perfect. Just be prepared to up the iso at the moment (if you're handholding rather than tripod)...the weather is very overcast a good chunk of the time, and I can't see that changing too much in a month.

As even selling off my vinyl hasn’t yet raised enough money to upgrade my 50D to a 5D Mark 3 and I don’t have any decent wide angle or Tilt and Shift lenses, I’m afraid I have nothing useful to contribute to this thread on matters photographic.

However the OP did mention that photographing castles was a main reason for the trip to Britain. I live in the south of the country of Wales (Wales being one of the several countries that make up the sovereign state of the United Kingdom) in a location between the towns of Monmouth and Abergavenny in the county of Monmouthshire that I believe to be the most heavily ‘castled’ area in Britain and, therefore, probably, the world. The following castles are all within a twenty five mile radius, exact distances from this location (Wernrheolydd) are given in miles in brackets with each listing:- Raglan (4), White Castle (4), Dingestow (5), Abergavenny (7 ), Monmouth (7), Usk (12), Grosmont (12), Crickhowell (14), Skenfrith (14), Kilpeck (16), Tretower (17), Chepstow (18), Caerphilly (20), Newport (20) Goodrich (22).

If you want castles, then you want to go to wales. The best ones are: Beaumaris, Conway, Caernarfon, Denbigh. These are all fairly big castles. There are a few good ones in England like Beeston but I'v visited the welsh ones more. The attached images are of Conway, the castle is big and well preserved and you can walk around the original town wall too.